25 years ago...

GERM WARFARE

Soviet delegate Jacob Malik
bluntly charged in the United
Nations that the United States
was guilty of launching bac-
teriological war against the Ko-
rean people. At the conclusion
of the first meeting of the UN
Disarmament Commission
Malik declared:

“[-would like to call the atten-
tion of the Commission to the
following facts. World public
opinion is concentrated at the
present time on the question of
the use by American troops in
Korea and China of the bac-
teriological weapon...

“Therefore would it not be
fitting for this commission to
consider immediately the ques-
tion of the prohibition of bac-
teriological warfare?”

The Tribune,
March 24, 1952

FLASHBACKS FROM
THE COMMUNIST PRESS

50 years ago...

“FAIR WAGE” CLAUSE
IN PULP CONTRACT

OTTAWA — The recent
pulpwood contract negotiated
with the Manitoba Paper Com-
pany contains the first fair wage
and fair working conditions
clause the Dominion has in-
serted in pulp contracts. The
clause in the new contract is as
follows:

“That the company shall pay
to those employed in the indus-
try wage rates not less that those
which are generally accepted as
current in each trade or occupa-
tion in similar. industries, and
shall maintain conditions of
labor not less favorable than th-
ose prevailing in similar indus-
tries in the district.”

A small enough concession,
indeed, as all our readers will
admit.

The Worker,
March 26, 1927

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 1, 1977—Page 4

JEIDIITORILATL
COMIMIENT

The weather-vane Budget

The federal Budget will be brought
down on March 31. It will extract from
the working people whatever the gov-
ernment thinks it can get for the ruling
monopolies it serves. A few trinkets to try
to win worker obedience is the usual
fare.

Finance Minister Macdonald, who
snaps his fingers at more than a million
Canadians denied jobs, is under pres-

sure from the right not only to endorse -
limitless profits, but to hand out billions ©

in “welfare” to corporations to raise their
“incentive”. :

Unemployment, however, has
reached crisis proportions and demands
government action. (The Conference
Board of Canada is predicting 8.3% sea-
sonally adjusted unemployment later
this year.)

One party, the Communist Party of
Canada, in the face of media blackouts,
proposes steps to deal effectively with
the economic crisis, indeed a crisis of
confidence in the system itself.

Not only is a program needed to re-
place the crisis policies of monopoly
capitalism, but to lead to a democratic
alternative to monopoly rule — a democ-
ratic coalition government to develop
Canada’s economy, to break the power
of the monopolies and multi-nationals,
assert Canada’s independence, and pro-
vide jobs.

It is within the power of the federal
Budget to provide the basis for solutions
to many of Canada’s problems. A
genuine Budget for the people of
Canada would aim at providing for: (1)

independent Canadian economic de-
velopment based on long-term non-in-
flationary growth; (2) a capital invest-
ment program directed to build secon- —
dary industry and provide jobs; (3) sta-
ble markets, guaranteed prices and in-
comes for farmers, security. of land te-
nure, tax-free agricultural implements
and farm machinery on a federal and.
provincial scale for small and medium
farmers; (4) public ownership of land for
urban: development, recognition of
housing as a public utility, a large scale
housing program of 400,000 units an-
nually for low and medium incomes; (5)
rollback of prices for food, rents, clo-
thing, energy, bring the big food store
chains under public control; (6) training
and jobs for young people; (7) equal pay
for work of equal value with equal bene-
fit and disability provisions for working
women; (8) a 50% cut in the excessive
$3.4-billion yearly military budget; (9) an

‘all-Canadian transportation policy, an

end to railway line abandonments, and |
nationalization of the CPR as part of a
fully integrated transportation system
on larid, sea and air; (10) an all-Canadian
energy policy based on public ownership
of energy, (11) public ownership of
natural resources, and nationalization of
multi-national corporations in Canada,
the banks and credit system.

These are the things that can be done.
The Budget, like a weathervane, will
show whether the government plans to
press to the right in its war against labor

and human rights, or to meet its respon- *

sibilities to the Canadian people.

For ending the arms race

The frightful escalation of the arms
race, and Canada’s apparent eager par-
ticipation, requires sober consideration
by every Canadian on how to stop this
race to destruction.

Of all the environments which di-
minish human rights (put on the agenda
genuinely, but also as a pretext for anti-
socialist slander), wars of aggression, and
fascism, must top the list. Yet, the arms
build-up to bolster imperialism and its
fascist extremes, itself crushes human
rights, denying not only goods and ser-
vices for decent living standards, the
normalcy of having a job, but warping
human and international relations along
the road to nuclear horror.

The new element is the scale and vari-
ety of opposition to the runaway arms
build-up, plus lack of unanimity in im-
perialist, even NATO, countries.

Is nuclear war still unthinkable, or is it
now thinkable and winnable, the view of
U.S. retired Air Force General George
Keegan, now military editor of United
States Military Review?

At least two large Canadian dailies, —

have warned on their editorial pages of
the “self-deception,” “unreality,” and
“frightening logic’ of U.S. hawks who
dominate NATO, and lean heavily on
the Carter administration.

John Morgan, Canadian Peace Con-
gress president, writes in Peace News for
March, that “the greatest need at the
moment,” is to convene a world dis-

armament conference sponsored by the
United Nations, but greater in breadth,
“at which a world settlement can begin.”

But the Coalition for a New Foreign
Military Policy in the USA — Canada’s
closest ally — charges that “Carter’s
foreign aid request (to Congress) of
more than $7-billion. contains a prop-
osed 77% increase in military aid to the

fascist regime in South Korea, a 24% in-

crease to Indonesia (a political prison.
house), and similar increases for Thai-
land, Haiti, Paraguay, Nicaragua and
Brazil.” .

A shrill anti-Soviet barrage tries at the

same time, to drown out long-standing

Soviet proposals for ending the arms
race. Repeating them on March 21,
Soviet leader Brezhnev indicated the
USSR’s readiness to advance the
achievements of the 1975 Helsinki con-
ference, and U.S.-Soviet agreements..He
pledged USSR efforts toward: positive
results at the June Belgrade meeting; re-
sumption of the Geneva Middle East
talks; progress in the talks on forces re-
duction in central Europe. Brezhnev -
agreed to on-the-spot nuclear inspection
to bring testing to a halt, and called for a

pledge by states against first use of nuc-

lear weapons.

The courses open are clear. The
people of the world, including Cana-
dians; are called upon to step up their
battle for disarmament in the interests of
all humanity.

°